Arts Party Offers Hands-On Extravaganza For All Ages

SOCORRO, N.M. February 4, 2013 – Calling all kids, parents, grandparents and neighbors: Get ready for this year’s colossal Community Arts Party, starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, at the City of Socorro’s Finley Gym, and lasting until 3 p.m.

“It’s going to be an extravaganza,” said Ronna Kalish, who came up with the idea of a huge, hands-on workshop in 1997, as a way for children of all ages to explore the wonderful world of arts and crafts.

The cornmeal mush station is one of the messier play areas at the annual Community Arts Party.

Finley Gym fills up with hundreds of children (of all ages) for the annual event.

The mural outside Finley Gym in downtown Socorro.

The Community Arts Party is a Socorro tradition, an opportunity for children and adults to don old duds and get down and dirty as they move from project to project, immersing themselves in paint, glue, glitter, play dough and papier mache – and that’s just the beginning.

Arts party-goers always look forward to seeing what artist Becky Titus Taylor comes up with for the group project. The former Socorroan, now living in the Jemez Mountains, has been central to the arts party since its inception, along with a host of other loyal volunteers.

“Becky will be showing kids how to make CD antenna headbands, along with her ‘loopy dude color-me color pages,’” Kalish said. “Her creativity and enthusiasm are contagious, and the kids just love her.”Yep, it's that time again already

The artist and her husband, Mark Taylor, will be using some of the hundreds of CDs and DVDs Becky has been collecting and using in her “Recycled Music” artwork. As she explained, “The computer disks will have blank labels so participants can draw on them and decorate them with all kinds of fun, crafty fuzzy things, and they can decorate the headbands as well.

“Since the CDs have such a lovely mirror surface on one side, everyone will be able to see how they look with their CD antennas on by looking at their neighbor's CD antennas,” she said.

Titus Taylor is a member of the Jemez Artisans gallery in Jemez Springs, which shows the works of nine members.

“The gallery has a really excellent variety of work. I also show regularly at Fuller Lodge Art Center in Los Alamos, and will have work at the Jemez Springs Bath House from February to April. Hopefully I’ll also be showing at the N.M. Arts & Crafts Fair in Albuquerque in June,” she said.

Her current work is mostly the Recycled Music Warped Album Art – hand-painted, vintage records warped into bowls, clocks, mirrors, earrings and sculpture. She also still works for the New Mexico Bureau of Geology on a freelance basis.

Kalish, director of the New Mexico Tech Performing Arts Series, organizes the event every year with Tech’s blessings, working the phone to line up volunteers, sponsors and donations.

The principal sponsor of this year’s event is the City of Socorro with additional support provided by local dentist C. Bonner Oates and the New Mexico Tech Facilities Management Department.

Younger children will enjoy face painting, play dough, balloon animals and flower fairies, while their older siblings can join the mural-painting project, or learn about Japanese brush painting, or create a cool pair of sunglasses.

“The Community Arts Party really does have something for all ages and all interests,” Kalish said. “I’ve seen children who came in as toddlers grow up in the program – some of them even became workshop leaders later on.”

So what else is in store for arts party participants? Here is a list of scheduled events in alphabetical order:

Animal Masks

Balloon Animals

Beading

Boogie Monsters

Bottle Cap Magnets

Bucky Balls

Buttons

Candle Dipping

CD Antenna Headbands

Clay Creations

Clay Hearts

Clay Wheel Throwing

Cornstarch Mush

Decoupage Jars

Drawing

Dream Catchers

Duct Tape Creations

Face Painting

Flower Fairies

Flower Pot Pens

Foam Embroidery

Glitter Galaxy

Gourds

Graffiti Boards

Handprint Hearts

Heart Mice

Japanese Brush Painting

Leather Works

Loopy Dude Color-Me Pages

Mural Painting

Ojos

Paper Hats

Pet Rocks

Play Dough

Rockets

Sand Art

Sunglasses

Swirling colors

Tie-dye

Tile Painting

Valentine cards

Water Colors

Whimsical Wire Wonder Sculptures

All that fun is bound to stimulate an appetite for the young artists and their adult helpers, so several concessions will be available to soothe those hunger pangs.